@Kazuya Prota: I've read that drone-operators actually tend to have worse PTSD, because of how mentally jarring it often is. One moment you're on the battlefield killing people, the next you're on lunch break at a Starbucks like nothing happened. By contrast, a soldier on the ground has a bit more of a 'transition' between war and peace that helps their mind to cope-they don't just go back into life at the office right away.
Edited by Protagonist506 on Jan 31st 2019 at 7:31:56 AM
Leviticus 19:34![]()
Things like Napalm and Agent Orange were specifically controversial because of their applications in attacking civilians. Drone strikes, while far more targeted, also are used frequently against civilian populations in faulty attacks against suspected insurgents, which is where the connection between the two is anyway.
I brought up Drones specifically because that was what we were famous for using in Yemen. It honestly doesn't matter to me whether its drone strikes or regular air strikes. Either way, its more civilian corpses on the bonfire of a conflict we have no reason to be inflaming.
And I'll say this: Please don't try to tell people you know why they're arguing something better than they do. Its condescending as hell.
Edited by AzurePaladin on Jan 31st 2019 at 10:43:25 AM
The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer
The issue with those is that they’re indiscriminate. So why aren’t we talking about the US’s very real track record in the Middle East with indiscriminate weapons like cluster bombs and anti-personnel mines, both of which are specifically banned alongside poison and incendiaries in international law? If we’re talking about Yemen, low altitude gunship raids have proven far more indiscriminate than drone strikes. Faulty intelligence applies equally to every weapon of war, after all.
But drones are new and different, so here we are.
Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 31st 2019 at 7:48:25 AM
They should have sent a poet.
My original point was precisely about how we were killing civilians in multiple conflicts, and I included drones as just one example. I used them because that is what we were famous for in the Yemen conflict. Substitute them for Gunship operations, and my point still stands.
Though if you want examples of why they're a concern besides being new, eagleoftheninth's point about them being under the control of the Intelligence Services and their use being to deliberately target noncombatants to assassinate them is a good point to start from.
Edited by AzurePaladin on Jan 31st 2019 at 10:54:44 AM
The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer
That’s not the original point. Kazuya was asking why there’s so much specific opposition to drones, and I think we can both admit much of that opposition is, like I said, coming from the fact that they’re new and not well understood. Just look at the way they’re reported on in left-leaning media.
Are there legitimate concerns with their operation? Sure, but that’s not what we were talking about.
Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 31st 2019 at 7:59:38 AM
They should have sent a poet.
x6 So people haven't been discussing the issues with drone strikes and national sovereignty?
Or the program's precision issues and collateral damage?
Or the faulty targeting, which the article I linked earlier discussed? All these issues have come up in drone strike discussions. The fact that they're also present in older systems doesn't warrant dismissing those issues, it warrants putting them into context. US pilots dropped more high explosives on Al-Qaeda in Tora Bora than every drone strike in history combined, and yet the group is still going strong 17 years later, so clearly there's something to question on the merit of fighting international terrorism via military aircraft. Nobody who's criticising drone strikes as a tactic would propose doing the same thing with manned aircraft, and to suggest otherwise is just strawmanning.
And the new tech factor goes both ways. Like SOF operators on the ground, the lighter footprint of combat drones means that they've been worked to the bone in pursuit of terrorist affiliates,
regardless of whether or not they're actually the best solution for the issue on hand.
![]()
Except that wasn't the original point: Kazuya was responding to a post I had made. And the reason I objected was because I was rather annoyed at having my point reduced to 'Luddism'.
Anyway, does this count as a derail? Should we move this over to the Military thread?
Edited by AzurePaladin on Jan 31st 2019 at 11:01:08 AM
The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer
He was asking about opposition to drone strikes in general, and I think we can both admit the majority of that opposition isn’t what’s being discussed here and comes from a more reactionary place. The Luddism comment wasn’t directed at you. But yes, I think this counts as a derail.
![]()
I agree that bombing countries isn’t a particularly productive way to fix their problems. If you can distill the US’s issues with interventionism in recent history down to one point it’s probably that. Drone strikes are just a different bomb though, ultimately.
Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 31st 2019 at 8:06:32 AM
They should have sent a poet.I think that it's plenty relevant, since the military side of interventions depends on its perceived cost, which combat drones go a long way in alleviating. The technical/doctrinal stuff can go into the Military Thread, though.
Edited by eagleoftheninth on Jan 31st 2019 at 8:09:33 AM
One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.So can we all agree that intervention in and of itself isn't bad, just that bombing places isn't really the best way of doing it?
I mean, it's kind of ridiculous to argue that the USA intervening is bad while also arguing that we can just leave it to Russia and Turkey. It's not like the USA intervening is somehow inherently worse — as was pointed out, it's probably better.
Edited by M84 on Feb 1st 2019 at 12:33:23 AM
Disgusted, but not surprised![]()
. Russia is already intervening in Middle Eastern Countries.
Discussing US actions in a vacuum simply doesn’t reflect reality. If we leave, that’s won’t somehow magically end instability in the region. All that will happen is Russia or China, or some other legitimately Authoritarian Regime will take our place.
Edited by megaeliz on Feb 1st 2019 at 12:01:33 PM
@Silasw at 1:38:58
Too often, supporters of military intervention have a self-righteous attitude and superiority complex about it. "Oh, you're an unpatriotic moral relativist for not supporting America's altruism", "oh, you just don't care about the people we're trying to help because they're not white", etc.
This makes it hard to not want to shove those smugs into how wrong they are about America being benevolent. Besides, even if an intervention COULD do some good, why should we trust our government to conduct it in a way that does good when doing good is clearly not something they're interested in?
@Fourthspartan 56: What makes you think deposing Assad won't lead to Islamic extremist groups filling the power vaccun like deposing Hussien did? Especially when most of the rebels left are Islamic extremists?
![]()
Nice strawmen. And I love how the Pro Interventionists are morally self righterous while the anti-intervention crowd is able to hate USA for both intenventing and NOT intervening.
Edited by KazuyaProta on Feb 1st 2019 at 1:34:37 PM
Watch me destroying my country![]()
What makes you think leaving him in won’t create a vacuum for Islamic extremists? Syria is extremist central right now, thanks largely in part to Assad and Russia’s brutal tactics and inability to provide stability to any part of the country. A functioning government is the best bulwark against terror.
Those aren't strawmen, they're arguments that have actually been lobbed at me in the past when I've argued for anti-interventionism on forums.
As for the claim about anti-interventionists being self-righteous about both interventionism and non-interventionism, you're simply ignoring context. There's a difference between military intervention - which always seems to kill civilians and usually makes things worse in other ways as well - and diplomatic intervention which doesn't have those problems.
Sometimes, in certain cases, especially with stuff as ethnic cleansings or mass murder, you have to use violence. You can't just sit down and talk to Daesh.
Even with outright dictators with secular organized systems, they still are stubborn and harsh to trust.
Also, with diplomatic interventionism you mean to what USA is doing in Venezuela right now? Because the anti-intenvention crowd is still calling that Imperialism
Edited by KazuyaProta on Feb 1st 2019 at 1:44:09 PM
Watch me destroying my country@Kazuya Prota: I don't mean negotiating with Daesh specifically. I'm just pointing out that diplomatic relations (see Iran nuclear deal) almost never result in civilian casualties where's military intervention does, which is one reason I usually support the former and not the latter. People accusing anti-interventionists of hypocrisy are conflating those two things in a dishonest way.
@archonspeaks: I strongly suspect most people who complain about drones are against any tech that regularly has civilian casualties. It just that drones are mentioned on the news more so they get talked about outside the news more.
@Ultimatum: Don't know how to do that on my phone. Sorry

The opposition to drone strikes always comes off as hypocritical because it frames drones as some special and revolutionary threat. If it was simply an opposition to bombing other people’s countries that would be a different story, but that’s rarely what the opposition to drones is about. There’s a touch of Luddism involved in it, IMO, which is something you see on the left every now and then.
The opposition to drones, in this thread and across the broader left, comes from the whole “killing by remote” thing.
Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 31st 2019 at 7:38:42 AM
They should have sent a poet.